Peter Chianca: Happy Father's Day! Now get out

Tuesday

Jun 11, 2013 at 12:01 AMJun 11, 2013 at 11:15 AM

A new survey shows that a full-two thirds of grown children, if forced to choose, would pick Mom over Dad to move in with them later in life. This is proof that mothers spend years brainwashing their children to prefer them over their fathers, mainly by sneakily doing most of the child rearing while the fathers are watching sports on TV.

Peter Chianca / At Large

As any father can tell you, dads tend to get subjected to all sorts of indignities. I’ve written on these very pages about the prejudices against our non-existent cooking abilities, the holidays on which we’re expected to greet power tools with hearty enthusiasm, and the anxiety that results when we realize that we’re turning into our own fathers, as a brief pit stop on the way to becoming our grandfathers.

But this one takes the (dad-friendly, low-carb-fat-free) cake: A new survey by the senior care company Visiting Angels shows that a full-two thirds of grown children, if forced to choose, would pick Mom over Dad to move in with them later in life. This is proof that mothers spend years brainwashing their children to prefer them over their fathers, mainly by sneakily doing most of the child rearing while the fathers are watching sports on TV.

As if that isn’t bad enough, the grown children responding to the survey have very specific reasons why they don’t want Dad darkening their doorstep. I would think most fathers would prefer their kids reject them out of some vague sense that everybody would be miserable, without getting too deep into the details.

Still, someone has to debunk these myths if we’re going to have somewhere to park ourselves during our twilight years. So following you’ll find the reasons listed on the survey, and my rebuttals made on behalf of all fathers everywhere, but mainly those who are concerned about having nowhere to live come 2048. We know who we are.

1) “Dad has worse hygiene than Mom” (75%). I’d argue that this is all relative. True, we may not be as freshly groomed as mothers, but that doesn’t mean we’re being followed around by noxious, Pigpen-like like dust clouds, except on weekends.

Also, the kids should keep in mind that fathers leave behind much less hair in the sink -- I calculate that, if my hair continues on its current trajectory, by 2048 I should have roughly the same amount as an overripe peach, and possibly also the same skin.

2) “Dad is more likely than Mom to say inappropriate things” (75%). Well, that’s just &%@#$ b$@!, and I don’t care if the Mother Superior is over for dinner.

Er, by which I mean, we fathers can be as appropriate and gracious in our commentary as anyone, and also, if you give us our own room in the basement we’ll probably never come out when company’s over anyway.

3) “Dad is sloppier than Mom” (70%). It seems to me that after all those years we spent pretending to help your mother raise you, the least you can do is overlook it when we leave our underwear or our toenails in your kitchen. Sometimes they just fall off without us noticing.

4) “Dad is lazier than Mom” (68%). As discouraging as this is getting, I’d like to thank the 2 percent of people who, while they agreed that Dad is a sloppy pig, drew the line at saying that he is also a lazy slug. As for the rest of you, I’d get up and say you should be ashamed of yourself, but, meh.

Also, please remember that just because a couch has a dad-shaped impression in it on the side closest to the TV doesn’t mean we’re lazy. I’d prefer to describe it as “consistent.”

5) “Dad would want to control the TV more than Mom” (69%). Guilty as charged!

The survey also lists a whole bunch of reasons as to why the kids feel Mom would be a better roomie than Dad: “more help with the cooking and cleaning,” “better with the kids,” “better listener,” “better at having birthed me.” OK, that last one’s not really on there, but you know they’re thinking it! (Let me just say that if men were physically capable of bearing children, we would not hesitate to hire someone to do it.)

I should also mention, though, that while the survey says that 70 percent of grown children would prefer not to have EITHER parent move in (thanks a lot, ingrates), more than half said they would move them in anyway, even if they couldn’t really afford it -- even dear old sloppy, lazy, inappropriate Dad.

Thanks kids -- I knew you’d come around! Now pass me the remote.

Peter Chianca is editor in chief for GateHouse Media New England’s north-of-Boston newspapers and websites and author of “Glory Days: Springsteen’s Greatest Albums.” Follow him on Twitter at @pchianca.